by Gwen Moffat
At noon she came out on the ridge to find the view so spectacular (although half of it hidden by the rise of her own mountain) that she felt it was not the country that was alien but herself: set down on a new planet. She was disturbed about this until she realized that, owing to the breadth of the ridge, shaped like a long rising dome, she had no perspective. She stood on a whale’s back in blue space above an ocean of peaks. She recalled Seale’s remark that the West was a million square miles where you were never out of sight of a mountain. She had thought it a figure of speech; now she realized it could be literally true.
She resumed her trudge to the summit, grateful for a small scale: for the last blooms of moss campion on a green cushion, for the sound of her boots crunching scree, for mist steaming her spectacles.
The ridge levelled and ended abruptly at a cairn, but the line continued hundreds of feet below in scalloped arêtes of rock that swooped and curved towards the snowy fangs of the Silvertips, their southern faces naked to the glare and dazzling, the eastern slopes shadowed and infinitely cold.
A thousand feet below, the pale thread of the trail crossed Dead Horse Pass to a rocky amphitheatre containing two lakes. On the far side of the divide the northern slope of the range was densely wooded, broken here and there by high crags like limestone edges, and deep rifts which would mark the course of creeks. Beyond the range was a wide valley and a faded mosaic of cultivation: fawns and russets, but predominantly grey-green. On the far side of the valley were more mountains.
Her gaze wandered helplessly along the Silvertips: places she would never go, never know, for the absence of visible rock indicated that they would be scree slopes in summer, avalanche traps at any other time. She searched for something familiar in this lonely world, something to which she could relate, and, looking north-west, her eyes sharpened. The sky, which at first glance she had thought pale with distance, was pale with cloud.
She sat on her rucksack and ate her lunch, calculating, and trying to adjust her calculations in view of her experience of weather systems in Europe and the south-west deserts. It was not an idle exercise. She reckoned those clouds were a hundred miles away. In Scotland you might see weather building up fifty miles distant and you’d reckon on eight hours’ grace before rain or wind or snow arrived. But in America weather systems travelled fast. If she reduced her safety margin by half, by more than half, she still had four hours in which to reach the Jeep. It was more than ample, barring emergencies. One must never forget the emergencies, she thought sternly—and remembered Shelley’s party.
She rose and focused the binoculars on the pass. Picking up the line of the trail, she traced it northwards, only to lose it where it must descend a headwall to the amphitheatre. It reappeared on the shore of the first lake, following its margin, but after some distance a path branched left, to be lost immediately in a waste of stones. The main trail, too, vanished abruptly at a lip above the second lake. The amphitheatre was on two levels. Nowhere was there any sign of the other party. Unless they had stopped for a prolonged lunch break by one of the lakes they would have reached the forest by now. Relieved, she packed her rucksack and started to descend.
By the time she reached the trail the sky was overdrawn by a light film through which the sun showed like a moon, surrounded by a spectral halo. Miss Pink observed it without emotion and continued steadily to her camp site where the Jeep waited for her like a patient animal. She had struck the tent before she left and now there was nothing to do but to get in and drive.
She looked round the glade to make sure that no one had left any litter and noticed blackened beer cans scattered outside the fire circle. So Shelley had not picked them up to carry out but merely put them on the fire.
She found a paper sack in the Jeep and flattened the cans, wondering what kind of animal had raked them out of the ashes, then she went down to the lake to wash her hands.
Although she had noticed no prints that morning and assumed that the deer drank at a less frequented place, she looked again—an automatic gesture—looked, and froze into immobility.
The chocolate mud was marked by running shoes and her own cleated soles and over these, fresh and soft and deeply indented, was a print like that of an enormous barefooted man.
It had five toes but it was fully twice as broad as that of a man, and a long way in front of each splayed toe was the mark of a crescent claw.
As a climber Miss Pink had been familiar with danger for over forty years: hazards of storm and avalanche and loose rock. Wild animals were a different matter; they were an unknown quantity and the beast that had left that track could be watching her at this moment, as the grey jays had watched her when she first came to the glade. Coldly she noted that the birds had disappeared.
The Jeep was some eighty yards away. The animal could be behind a spruce or in the undergrowth. How tall was a grizzly, and did it wait to pounce like a crouching cat or reared on its hind legs? And if it was between her and the Jeep, concealed, there was no question but that it could intercept a dash, however fast she ran.
She returned to the Jeep in the same manner as she had left it: with apparent calm, not looking to right or left; in fact she saw nothing, all her concentration was in her hearing, listening for the slightest sound that might break the silence: the snap of a stick, twigs brushed by a furry body, for breathing. It was so still she would surely hear it breathe.
She reached the Jeep and climbed inside, slamming the door. She must have been holding her breath for now she exhaled in a great sigh of relief. Suddenly, and not until that moment, she was aware that she was sweating profusely. She leaned on the steering wheel, her head in her hands. Then she remembered the doors and snapped the buttons that locked them both.
Nothing moved in the glade, nothing moved anywhere: on the lake, in the trees, against the distant skyline. She pressed the accelerator, waited a moment, and turned the ignition key. The engine fired and roared.
She eased out of the trees and turned south on the track. She recalled all the hazards before the highway: mud, water, rock, the fallen tree. On the way in she had thought cheerfully that in the last resort a minor accident meant nothing worse than an expenditure of money; she would walk out, find a breakdown vehicle and pay a large bill. But now the Jeep was her only sanctuary in a hostile world; to be forced to abandon it and walk through the dense timber, perhaps with the light failing, would be suicidal.
As she approached the top of the waterfall she saw something move on the track ahead, outlined against the sky. The shape reared to the height of a man and then she saw its legs and she braked, gripping the wheel, staring, drained of emotion, at a hiker. On he came, walking steadily into the area from which she was fleeing. She accelerated in panic and skidded to a stop beside him.
‘Get in!’
He was of medium height, unsmiling, wearing a shaggy woollen hat which she had mistaken for the head of a bear, and carrying a loaded packframe.
‘Why?’ He was frankly hostile, and small wonder.
‘I’m sorry. There are fresh grizzly tracks by the lake. At least a foot long. Twelve inches, I mean. That’s grizzly, isn’t it? Not black bear.’
He shrugged. ‘Did you see any people?’
‘I camped with another party last night but they went north this morning. They would be ten, fifteen miles away by—’
‘Hunters?’
She stared at him and looked past him into the forest. ‘Won’t you get into the Jeep? You make me nervous. It could be watching us at this very moment.’
He hesitated, searching her face as if trying to determine her sincerity, then he walked to the passenger side and, with some difficulty, managed to push his pack over the back of the seat into the bed of the truck. After he got in and closed the door she did not drive away immediately. She realized that she was trembling. She said weakly: ‘I’m somewhat shaken. But we were talking about bears last night, and today, in the sunshine, I forgot about them until I saw that print, and it was only a
few minutes ago. I think I must be suffering from shock. I find it incredible that in this affluent and sophisticated country these—monsters—man-eaters, should be wandering around loose. I’m talking too much.’
He looked down the track and said thoughtfully: ‘I can’t say I’m much bothered about bears.’
‘Then you should be.’ She was angry with him, with herself, with this whole mad and lethal situation.
‘What about these other guys?’ he asked. ‘Were they armed?’
‘One man carried a handgun. A Magnum.’
‘And they went north. You think they’re camped in the mountains?’
‘They’re making for Prosper on the other side. They’ll camp tonight and reach the valley tomorrow. That was the original plan, but with this bad weather they may push straight through tonight.’
The wind was rising, soughing in the pines, and it was cold. The sun had gone, the sky was a low ceiling of overcast. She started the engine and they rolled forward.
‘There’s going to be a nasty storm,’ she said.
‘That puts paid to my trip.’ He hesitated. ‘Are you going out to the highway?’
‘I am.’
He stared through the windscreen, seemingly preoccupied. In profile his face was not striking: a trimmed blond moustache, features which you would forget as soon as he was out of sight except for the eyes—rather dark for a fair man—intent and unfathomable when he had faced her. Now he was silent for some time until he asked: ‘Are the bears really dangerous?’
She made to protest, then she considered the question, trying to be objective. ‘It was the footprint,’ she confessed. ‘So large—and last night: a horror story about bears attacking sleeping girls in Glacier National Park.’
‘But the party was armed.’
‘They didn’t say that—oh, you mean the party I camped with last night. Yes. One of them carried a gun. I told you that.’
‘So they were expecting trouble.’
‘On the contrary, they assured me that there were no bears in the Silvertips. I did ask his friend why he carried a gun. She said that most people did in the West, or that many people did.’
There was a pause. ‘I’ve done a lot of hiking,’ he said slowly. ‘And you’re right: this country’s dangerous. There are rattlesnakes. You can’t be too careful when you’re alone.’ He turned to her. ‘You’re a long way from civilization.’
‘I saw the sign to Dead Horse Pass and I couldn’t resist following the trail.’
‘Are you English?’
She admitted it and said once again that she was on holiday.
‘I’m on vacation, more or less.’ His tone was grudging. ‘I take photographs.’
‘You’re a professional?’
‘Maybe, one day. Doubt if I’ll ever make it.’ He was morose. ‘Be a nice change, travelling round the country, taking pictures, no responsibilities. I work in a bank.’
‘When the storm passes you might get some superb effects: sunlight, low cloud, strong contrasts.’
‘I might do at that.’ He showed no enthusiasm; he was preoccupied with something other than photography.
The fallen tree appeared, seeming to block the track. Confident in company, even reckless, Miss Pink judged her distances, trod on the accelerator and swept up and round the bank in a fair imitation of a wall of death. Her companion was thrown against his door and she apologized. ‘I should have warned you. I didn’t take it fast enough on the way up and scraped the paintwork.’
He did not respond. There was something wrong here. She looked at the sky above the pines, searching for a fresh topic of conversation. A few drops of moisture showed on the windscreen. He said with sudden vehemence: ‘I hope no one’s left in the mountains.’
‘I saw no one other than those four people, and they must be well down the other side by now. They had a good fire last night so they’ll build one tonight. They’ll need it; they were poorly equipped—’ She checked because he, too, was wearing jogging shoes and jeans, and although his shirt was woollen, his padded waistcoat was sleeveless.
‘It’s mad to hike in this weather. Mad!’ He sounded beside himself.
‘I don’t think they had much experience. The women skied, but the men—’ She tried to be fair: ‘—they had proper tents and they were not mountaineering—’ Her voice trailed off.
He stared at her. ‘Not mountaineering?’
‘One of them suggested he might climb a mountain but I’m sure he won’t. I hope he won’t.’
‘If he was a climber—’
She shook her head firmly. ‘He wasn’t. But he was the kind of person—’ Really, she was being most indiscreet with this stranger.
‘The kind of man could convince the others to go with him?’
‘No.’ She was adamant. ‘No one could be that stupid. The other three were sensible people. I can’t imagine any of them being persuaded to follow him up one of those peaks with bad weather on the way.’
‘You reckon this guy was stupid?’
‘I would say that he lacked judgement.’ She was prim.
‘The world’s over-populated. So long as the other three get down safely, the stupid one’s no loss, right?’
Startled, her eyes met his and she saw that he was smiling but it was not a smile of amusement. There was a wild light in the dark eyes.
She dropped him at the mouth of Wolverine Canyon where a brown station wagon stood in a parking lot. She acknowledged his thanks and drove away, wondering if he found her as incomprehensible as she found him. They had exchanged no names and neither knew the other’s destination. Jogging shoes and a big pack and no explanation of what he was doing. A man from nowhere. She wondered where he would go now, what he would do. And then, driving gently down the paved highway, at a speed conducive to rational thought and to memory, she reflected that there were hundreds, thousands of people like him: men and women with deep emotional problems, trying to weather a crisis. Perhaps the poor fellow didn’t know himself what he was doing or where he was going. Could this be the explanation for that odd remark: ‘I can’t say I’m much bothered about bears’? Perhaps he wasn’t bothered about anything. Was he running from some horror worse than being devoured alive?
Chapter 3
The large green sign announced “Prosper. Elev. 6050 ft. Pop. 67”. Beyond it a few lights showed in the gloom of early evening. Tardily, Miss Pink realized that she had no directions. Everyone knew the Logan ranch, Seale had said, but Seale hadn’t reckoned on her guest arriving during a torrential downpour. The rain had been falling heavily for over an hour.
The road was empty of traffic and, despite the lights, there was no sign of human activity until she saw, set back from the road, a car gleaming in the light of an open door and a figure moving in the room beyond.
She turned off the highway and parked behind the car, seeing now that this was not a house but some kind of shop; not a store, she realized, stepping inside to escape the rain, but a studio. A woman was removing a pendant from a glass show-case: a thin woman with piled copper-coloured hair from which strands escaped to frame high cheekbones. She wore a dress in hot orange and scarlet stripes and a jacket of silver fox. Long fingers tipped with red laid the pendant tenderly on a bed of cotton wool in a flat box.
‘Good evening,’ Miss Pink said pleasantly. ‘That’s beautiful.’
Clear green eyes were raised to hers. ‘Isn’t it? Good evening.’ The lady took in the tapered hair, the Icelandic jersey, the heavy boots. She smiled warmly. ‘Why, you must be Miss Pink! Welcome to Prosper. Did you just arrive?’
‘Yes. What a wet evening! You’re a friend of Seale’s?’
‘Of course. I’m Edna Lenhart—’ She came out from behind the counter to close the door, talking the while, missing Miss Pink’s faint surprise. ‘Let’s shut this rain out. The heating’s turned down, I’m afraid, but you must have some coffee before you go on, fortify yourself for the last lap. You drove from Salt Lake today?’
&nbs
p; ‘No. I spent last night in the mountains. Is it far to the Logan ranch?’
‘Only twelve miles.’ Miss—Mrs Lenhart (Shelley’s mother?) retreated to an alcove but continued to talk: ‘I’m closing the studio for a few weeks, taking the valuable stuff home. That is, the stuff people would recognize as valuable. It’s insured, of course, but too visible through the windows.’ She emerged, carrying plastic beakers, and handed one to her visitor. ‘The pictures are too bulky to steal. It’s the jewellery they go for.’
Miss Pink looked round the walls: at cowboys on galloping horses—all dilated nostrils and rolling eyes, at buffalo, sage, improbable mountains and enormous skies. There was a preponderance of sunsets and rainbows, and a number of rather wobbly still lifes in the manner of Van Gogh.
‘Extraordinarily colourful,’ she said. ‘A professional thief would know they were expensive, but it would be difficult to find a fence who would take them, and bulky, as you say. Crime seems incongruous in such a thinly populated area.’
Mrs Lenhart’s mouth turned down. ‘It’s not locals, of course, but people on the road. They’re kind of well-heeled gypsies, you know? They work the studios in the resorts—and anywhere else that looks closed for the season, I guess. Maybe we get more break-ins here because it’s on a highway and a bit sleepy. Like the police,’ she added darkly.
‘You have a policeman in Prosper?’
‘The Highway Patrol regularly: for food and gossip at The Covered Wagon, but the sheriff’s at Sweetgrass. That’s forty miles north.’
They sat on hard chairs, Miss Pink politely sipping her sugarless coffee, surrounded by shelves of pottery glazed in bright greens and blues and bronze, racks of paperbacks and a great deal of trivia in macramé and wood, leather and glass but not, she observed, in plastic. She said: ‘I didn’t know you had a studio. I met your daughter—’
